


gonna hold my breath until my eyes stop stinging

by Anemoi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-21 23:59:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8265175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: it comes off the rails, sometimes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this falls under "i wrote it in an hr and will post before i delete the whole thing" which happens a lot with hendollama. i wonder why.

Everything's good up until it isn't. Adam feels the turn of the season like a toothache in the back of his mouth, like when he was 17 and his wisdom teeth was just about to come out and throbbed intermittently, promising a hideously consistent pain somewhere in the near future. It was just like that, when Jordan slides into him in a too-rough tackle in practice and stretches a hand out after, smiling apologetically with his tongue between his teeth.

Adam ignores his hand. He gets up by himself and brushes grass off his practice bib, purposefully not looking at Jordan but knowing he's frowning now.

“Ads?” Jordan asks, as if he was about to say something more, but Emre comes bounding over, and whatever he was about to say lies forgotten.

 

-

 

Adam breaks his nose when he's 13. His mum doesn't scream when he comes home, ball tucked under his arm, shirt bloodied down the front and holding a half melted bag of ice to his face, but it's a close thing. He sits and lets her fuss over him, face white, hands gentle, his neck tipped backwards unnaturally. He tastes the salty tang of blood sliding down the back of his throat, everything hurting like chlorine. Like when he breathes in water at the pool. Breathing had hurt, then, but he'd done it anyway, slowly. _In, out._

 

_-_

 

Jordan leaves him alone for the next couple of days, tentatively stepping around him but trying to keep up the normal pretense of being mates in front of the others. Adam tells himself he doesn't mean it, doesn't _want_ to be moody but it couldn't be helped, so there. Jordan texts, innocuous things like what they were going to focus on next practice, or what Studge had recommended on spotify, and Adam replies in noncommittal one or two word answers. Jordan doesn't stop, and Adam doesn't act differently otherwise, so there wasn't, really, anything wrong.

 

-

 

Adam breaks his heart at 16, which is common enough. He forgets about her in a few years time, so the memory of that hurt was all that lingered in the back of his mind. He breaks his heart in private when he's 20, but he was good enough at pretending by then that it hadn't quite mattered. The worst of it was he couldn't tell. Not his mum, not his mates, not anyone. 16-year-old Adam got drunk a lot and practiced harder than ever until he forgot about the girl and earned himself a contract. 20-year-old Adam got drunk a lot and practiced harder than ever until he forgot about the boy and went back to Southampton.

Cyclical, almost.

 

-

 

Jordan doesn't quite set Milly on him, but Adam has his doubts. Why else would Milly latch on to him at practice, stoically saying nothing, making conversation about the weather.

“What's going on with you?” Milly asks finally, Adam's leg propped on his shoulder.

“Nothing,” Adam says. It was true enough. “The season changing,” he adds, just because.

Milly raises an eyebrow.

“It's getting cold,” Adam says. Milly doesn't say anything. Later, when they're playing five-a-side, Adam passes to Jordan because he was in the clear and Jordan scores, easy, Simon landing with a soft _whump_ on the grass as the ball rolled past him into the net.

Jordan bounds across and hugs Adam to him, awkwardly, pressing their chests together and thumping Adam on the back.

Adam lets him, curls his hands into Jordan's sides where they're harmless, feeling like all the pent up breath inside his chest was coming out in one big _woosh_. It hurts to breath, almost.

 

-

 

Later, after he'd switched off his phone and climbed into Jordan's bed with only his boxers on, Jordan says, “I thought you-”

He doesn't complete the sentence. Adam fills in the gap with his own words. _I thought you regretted it. I thought you hated me._ Morbid. He'll never know what Jordan wanted to say, because Jordan would never say it. Instead, predictably, Jordan reaches over him to tuck the covers in snugger, and kisses Adam, only slightly hesitant.

“It's the weather,” Adam explains. “Always felt odd around this time of the year.”

Jordan doesn't say anything, but then again, Adam didn't expect him to.

 

-

 

Adam is very good at breaking things. Promises, etc. _I promise to love you and only you, forever._ He can't remember if he'd kissed the crest at Southampton, when running out at Anfield. He blames that on Anfield, on Liverpool, on club history heavy and resplendent enough to wipe out his own history. Sometimes breathing is all he knows how to do, and everything else comes afterwards. Sometimes there's only a clarity hard won, which only lasts for a moment, as long as it takes for Jordan to get the pass to him, and for him to get it to Phil, and for Phil to send it, spinning as deadly and true as a knife in the heart, into the back of the net.

A moment, for Jordan to wrap his hand around the back of Adam's neck in the middle of their team huddle and Adam to put his head over Jordan's chest, where his heart beat, erratic.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading <3


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